Friday, June 29, 2012

As you might remember, the 'Palestinians' were elected to UNESCO last year, even though they're not a member on the UN and the charter forbids that sort of thing.

The consequences of that decision just became evident.

The Church of the Nativity, located in Bethlehem, a particularly sacred spot to Christians, is built over the spot where Jesus is supposed to have been born.

Today, UNESCO's World Heritage committee voted to name the church an endangered spot - in 'Palestine', and under the control of the 'Palestinian Authority'.

Normally, there's an 18 month review period for this kind of status, but the rules were bent for the 'Palestinians' and this was immediately brought to a vote:

Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi said the vote was an affirmation of Palestinian sovereignty over the site that marks the place where Christians believe Jesus was born.

Israel angrily denounced the vote, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ilana Stein saying the decision "has turned UNESCO into a theater of the absurd."

"This is a sad day for the World Heritage Committee," she said.

The 21-member committee, meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, voted 13-6 to include the church and pilgrimage route, located in the Israeli-controlled West Bank, on its list of sites. There were two abstentions.{...}

The U.S. ambassador to UNESCO, David Killion, said the United States is "profoundly disappointed."

The reason the 'Palestinians' gave for the fast tracking was that the Church of the Nativity was in desperate need of repairs - which of course was Israel's fault.

Actually, Bethlehem is in a part of Judea that is totally under the control of the 'Palestinian' Authority since Oslo.

One of the first things Arafat and the mafiosos known as the Palestinian Authority did after the Israelis handed them control of Gaza and a large chunk of the West Bank was to adopt Islam as its official religion, put sharia Islamic law codes into place and allow officially appointed Palestinian Muslim imams and clerics to demonize both Christian and Jewish `infidels' in its mosques and the media. And Arafat and the Palestinian Authority took steps to eliminate any Christian majorities where they still existed.

Since the Palestinian Authority took over Bethlehem in 1995 under the Oslo Accords with Israel, Bethlehem has been transformed from a majority Christian city into a Muslim city. The few Christians left in the city now cling to their homes at the sufferance of the majority Muslim population.

In 1996, as an example, Arafat fired Bethlehem's Christian mayor and totally redistricted Bethlehem, redefining its municipal boundaries so that they included many nearby Muslim villages. Overnight the Christian population found itself reduced from an 80 percent majority to a minority, with little control over anything. Arafat placed Christian sites like the Church of the Nativity under the direct control of the Islamist Palestinian Authority rather than under the control of Palestinian Christians.

Bethlehem has gone from an 80% Christian population to less than 8% since the Palestinian Authority took over.

And that was back in 2007, five years ago. There are even less Christians now. And as far a repairs go, sharia demands that dhimmi non-believers get permission before any repairs or restoration are made. As you can imagine, this is a low priority for Muslims, especially in view of the ongoing ethnic cleansing.

Another thing few of the stories covering this mention is the last full scale interaction between 'Palestinians' and The Church of the Nativity.That happened in April of 2002, during the Second Intifada, when about fifty of Arafat's al-Aksa Martyr's brigade thugs who were fleeing from the IDF invaded the Church and took everyone inside hostage.They looted the facilities, desecrated the church and even reportedly used Bibles and hymnals as toilet paper.

One document later captured by the Israelis in Ramallah during the siege of Arafat's headquarters in the Muqatah showed that Arafat's terrorists also extorted money out of Bethlehem's Christians by threatening to destroy the church.

It's important to recognize that to the 'Palestinians', this is a religious victory as well as a political one. That's exactly why the three churches that act as custodians of the site, Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Roman Catholic were so fiercely opposed to this move.

They know what's likely to happen when Muslims have full control over a Christian Holy site.

The real fireworks will start when the 'Palestinians' demand recognition of Jewish and Christian Holy sites in other parts of Judea and Samaria, and in Jerusalem. This is just the beginning.

Actually, Christians themselves should take this as a cue to do exactly what Muslims do in these circumstances to defend what's theirs. I'm afraid that's all that's likely to save the church that sits on the spot where Jesus was born.
Unless that happens, one day Christians are going to find that the 'Palestinian'
Muslims have turned the Church of the Nativity into a mosque.

In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.

The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.

The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.

According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.

Holder and Cummings have both maintained that the wiretap applications did not contain such details and that the applications were reviewed narrowly for probable cause, not for whether any investigatory tactics contained followed Justice Department policy.

The wiretap applications were signed by senior DOJ officials in the department’s criminal division, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco and another official who is now deceased.

The Roll Call article isn't telling you the whole story.

As I reported last Tuesday, the wiretap applications, a copy of which was given to the oversight committee by a DOJ whistle blower also shows that senior DOJ officials including AG Holder knew back in March 2011 that the February 4, 2011 letter from the DOJ to Senator Chuck Grassley denying that guns were permitted to “walk” into Mexico was totally bogus. That letter, signed by Attorney General Holder, was allowed to stand for nine more months, and it was only withdrawn when a series of e-mails subpoenaed by the committee proved that Holder was lying and that he was briefed far earlier on the program than he claimed to have been during his testimony.

That's called obstruction of justice and perjury.

Even more interesting is that the wiretap applications may not be able to be shielded by the president under executive privilege because they were already submitted to a federal court and these particular documents are already under seal.

That's the real smoking gun Rep. Issa just read into the Congressional Record, and that's what this story isn't quite telling you.

As I've repeated before, there's a trail here that leads right back to the White House.

How did it get there? The Republicans were all locked out of the room , literally. Who was responsible for getting it into the bill? And whose instructions were they acting on? What did the President know and when did he know it?

I think it's time Congress deposed President Obama and had him answer a few questions, under oath. Just to get him on record.

Here's a sign of how very wrong the Obama Administration is about the 'moderate' Muslim Brotherhood.

Today, Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi addressed crowds in Tahrir Square in Cairo. And along with the usual rhetoric about 'maintaining the Islamic revolution', President Morsi made an interesting promise to the crowds in the square and watching him on television:

“I see signs for Omar Abdel Rahman and detainees’ pictures,” he said, referring to placards held by the crowd. “It is my duty and I will make all efforts to have them free, including Omar Abdel Rahman.”

My, my.Pravda-on-the Hudson does its best to whitewash this, but even they seem to evidence a little bit of surprise at how quickly the Muslim Brotherhood is revealing its true character.

For those of you whom don't remember, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, AKA The Blind Sheik is a vicious terrorist connected to Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, an al-Qaeda offshoot, who is now serving a life sentence for his involvement the first World trade center bombing in 1993 and in a plot to assassinate former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak.

President Morsi,by the way,is also a 9/11 truther, a fairly common thing in the Muslim world:

“When you come and tell me that the plane hit the tower like a knife in butter, then you are insulting us,” Mr. Morsi told Mr. Hamid, as he later reported in Foreign Policy. “How did the plane cut through the steel like this? Something must have happened from the inside. It’s impossible.”

Ah yes, those mysterious unseen hands.Had to have been the Mossad. Or the evil Bush Crusaders, plotting to steal Arab oil. Osama bin-Laden was just lying, you see, when he claimed credit for the 'operation.'

The Times also tries to shift this by claiming:'Although it is all but impossible to find an Egyptian who supports either the 1993 or 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, many are skeptical about the official American accounts of who was responsible for them or for other terrorist plots.'

Apparently they never read translations of the Egyptian press or polls by the Pew Center Trust, which say something entirely different.

Their apparent shock that the 'Arab Spring' is turning into something far different would be almost comical if it wasn't so deadly. The Brotherhood has been dreaming of the Caliphate for years, and President Obama and others in his administration have handed them a first, all important step on a silver platter.

In the future, a radicalized Egypt and Libya will be linked with President Obama the same way Iran and the ayatollahs are linked to Jimmy Carter.

A three-hour tour here today, made with local guides who picked paths around Israeli tanks, showed destruction on a scale far greater than that seen in the other Palestinian cities that have fallen before Israel's offensive, its biggest ground operation in 20 years. Israel says Jenin was a center of terrorism, which it is determined to weed out. Israeli officials have spoken of 100 to 200 dead here, and Palestinians have estimated two, three, or four times that number. No one yet knows how many were killed in fighting that has lasted 11 days, and is now all but over, but already the battle here seems certain to be argued over in the contest between the Israelis and Palestinians. ...Israel says that its soldiers were careful to avoid shooting civilians, and that most of the dead were fighters. Residents of the camp said many civilians were killed.

There is no mention in the article of the dead soldiers, just this:

A public relations struggle is under way over this ruined place. The battle for the Jenin camp is already becoming another significant, harshly contested episode in the history of both peoples.

On the Palestinian side that struggle was marked by the false claim of a massacre in Jenin. The New York Times failed to report on one of the most relevant details in debunking that libel.

Q. Can the IDF code of ethics undergo changes? “The code is stable. The more abstract the values are, the less they change. The doctrines can change because we are in new situations all the time. The doctrine of combating terror, which I dealt with together with Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, who was the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, includes a new situation in which terrorists live among civilians. We must free ourselves from the attitude that regards others’ lives with fear and trembling while holding the lives of our own combat soldiers in complete contempt. International law wants to impose a position on us whereby soldiers are a consumable resource and that the lives of enemy civilians must be protected more than the lives of our own combat troops. Bandages are a consumable resource. Water is a consumable resource. Human beings are not. “If we warned the terrorists’ neighbors to leave the area, in Arabic, in any way — flyers, telephone calls, television broadcasts, a warning noise — and they stay anyway — why are they staying? Because they choose to be human shields for terrorists. I do not want to kill a human being only because he is a human shield, if he is not a threat to me. But should a soldier of mine risk himself for him? Is the blood of a human shield any redder than the blood of my soldier? A soldier has no choice other than to be in Gaza, in that alleyway. But to be sent inside — why? In the battle in Jenin, in the middle of Operation Defensive Shield, the IDF knew that the refugee camp was booby-trapped. But they still insisted on not bombing from the air in order to keep from harming civilians, and they suffered terrible losses. That was a mistake. They should have made an effort to get the civilian population out of the terrorist environment, and then there would have been no need to send in the infantry.”

Even ten years later it's astounding to reflect on how oblivious the world is to the care Israel's takes to avoid collateral damage.

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

Remember when the left claimed that pathetic attention whores like Cindy Sheehan had 'moral authority' and were beyond any criticism of their motivation or tactics because a loved one had been killed? And especially when that suited the left's political agenda?

One of the things that is true of the Left is that it is generally guilty of great selectivity when applying those things it claims are absolute.

I could note their selective absolutism on discrimination (except for affirmative action), the right to keep medical care between patient and doctor (but only for abortion -- ObamaCare will bring government into every other medical decision), free speech (except for speech the Left dislikes) and freedom of religion (you WILL buy birth control for your employees and do gay marriages or lose your tax exemption!).

And apparently that selective application of absolute principles applies to the parents of public servants who are killed in the line of duty.

Back in 2005, Maureen Dowd declared, regarding Cindy Sheehan, that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute." Of course, the mere fact that Ms. Sheehan did not speak for the overwhelming majority of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, or sisters and brothers of those who have died fighting the various terrorist groups seeking to impose radical Islam on the rest of the world didn't detract from Sheehan's "absolute moral authority" -- the White House was obliged to accommodate her and tailor policy to her demands.

Of course, Sheehan's "absolute moral authority" was conceded by the Left only until the Democrats took control of Congress and Sheehan began applying the same standards to emocrats that she did to Republicans -- and she was dismissed as a crazy old auntie in the attic once she began to criticize Barack Obama. After all, "absolute" is a relative term to the Left.

I need to warn you about our non-Council winner, Natasha Smith's “Please God. Please make it stop.” submitted by Joshuapundit. It's not for the faint hearted or the weak of stomach. It was written by a young British female independent journalist making a documentary on women's rights in Egypt..who got caught by a mob in Cairo's Tahrir Square, and what happened to her there.

Apparently the 'Arab Spring' doesn't apply to women, especially not foreign ones. Do read it if you can stand it...the comments are especially instructive.

See you next week! Remember to tune in next Monday for the Watcher's Forum question, where the Council and invited guests provide pithy short takes as a roundtable on a major issue...don't you DARE MISS IT!

And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..'cause we're cool like that...

Thursday, June 28, 2012

The House of Representatives voted today to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal contempt of Congress and pursue a civil action in the courts. The vote was 255 ayes, 67 nays, and 1 present, with 17 Democrats voting with the Republicans in favor.

Over 100 democrats walked out during the voting in a protest led by the Congressional Black Caucus. In fact, one CBC member, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) even introduced a resolution calling for the House to reprimand oversight committee chairman Darrel Issa ( R-CA), accusing him of having “engaged in a witch hunt.”

Holder is the first attorney general ever cited for contempt by Congress. The charges stem from his failure to provide documents subpoenaed by the oversight committee relating to an alleged coverup of Fast and Furious,an Obama Administration operation that allowed thousands of weapons to be illegally purchased and 'walked' across the border to be sold to Mexican drug cartels. Th eweapons were not electronically tracked, most of them have never been recovered and they have been linked to over 300 murders, including that of border patrol agent Brian Terry.

Rep. Issa closed out the contempt debate by speaking in front of a giant poster of Agent Terry in his Border Patrol uniform.

“We were lied to repeatedly, and over a 10-month period,” Mr. Issa said. “That is what we’re here for.”

The shooter is now in custody, and what's termed as 'an investigation' is being conducted by special agents from the Army Criminal Investigation Command:

"This is a tragedy for our community. We don't yet know the reasons for the shooting, but are working with the unit and the affected Families to help them through this difficult period," said Col. Kevin Arata, XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg Public Affairs Officer. "Our prayers are with those who have been affected by this terrible incident."

GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney had a few things to say about today's Supreme Court ruling in favor of ObamaCare:

"Let's make clear that we understand what the Court did, and did not do," Romney said in Washington, D.C., according to a rough transcript of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's statement. "What the Court did today was say that Obamacare does not violate the Constitution. What they did not do was say that Obamacare is good law or that it's good policy."

This presidential election is "a choice," Romney said. "You can choose whether you want to have a larger and larger government, more and more intrusive in your life, separating you and your doctor, whether you're comfortable with more deficits, higher debt that we will pass onto the coming generations. [Or] whether you're willing to have the government put in place a plan that potentially causes you to lose the insurance that you like or whether instead you want to return to a time when the American people will have their own choice in health care, where consumers will be able to make share choices as to what kind of health insurance they want."

"This is the time of choice for the American people," Romney said.

Romney concluded: "Help us. Help us defeat Obamacare. Help us defeat the liberal agenda that makes government too big, too intrusive and is killing jobs across this great country."

The Supreme Court ruled today that ObamaCare as it now stands is Constitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts provided the swing vote, with Justices Alito, Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia dissenting.

Oddly enough, Justice Roberts' decision was based on the notion that the individual mandate, the heart of the bill is a tax and therefore falls under Congress's power to levy such taxes. That's the exact opposite of what the Obama Administration said in it's oral arguments, and what the president himself said earlier.

“Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness,” Roberts said in his opinion.

The court also disputed the law’s expansion of Medicaid, but agreed to allow it as long as the federal government does not threaten to withhold states’ entire Medicaid allotment if they don’t take part in the law’s expansion.

“The act before us here exceeds federal power both in mandating the purchase of health insurance and in denying non-consenting states all Medicaid funding,” the dissenters said in a joint statement.

Apparently, there's nothing government cannot do, no commerce or activity public or private they cannot compel, according to Justice Roberts and the Court's majority.If this stands, we can mark this as the end of America as a free country.

The Obama Administration now has a ruling, one that redefines ObamaCare as the largest tax increase in history. . Governor Mitt Romney, the Tea Party and Americans who still believe in freedom now have a cause and a major campaign issue to rally around, and this is going to galvanize them like nothing else could. In fact, given the unpopularity of this law, it might just have ensured Mitt Romney's election, along with a conservative majority in Congress.

Iran’s vice president delivered a baldly anti-Semitic speech on Tuesday at an international antidrug conference here, saying that the Talmud, a central text of Judaism, was responsible for the spread of illegal drugs around the world.

European diplomats in attendance expressed shock. Even Iranian participants in the conference, co-sponsored by Iran and the United Nations, privately wondered at their government’s motive for allowing such a speech, even given its longstanding antagonism toward Israel.{...}

The “Zionists” are in firm control of the illegal drug trade, Mr. Rahimi said, asking foreign dignitaries to research his claims. “Zionists” is Iran’s ideological term for Jews who support the state of Israel.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict,” Mr. Rahmini said. “They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in drugs trade.”

Mr. Rahimi, who spoke after Mr. De Leo, told stories of gynecologists’ killing black babies on the orders of the Zionists and claimed that the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was started by Jews, adding that mysteriously, no Jews died in that uprising.

He also said the Talmud teaches Jews to think that they are a superior race. “They think God has created the world so that all other nations can serve them,” he said.

A European diplomat said afterward: “This was definitely one of the worst speeches I have heard in my life. My gut reaction was: why are we supporting any cooperation with these people?”

Such views are far from uncommon throughout the Muslim world and that includes the Muslim enclaves in Europe, so I can't imagine why the Europeans were so shocked. They've heard this sort of thing and worse before.

What I wonder is why the Europeans (and a certain American president) still think the Iranians are rational actors and that 'engagement' with people who think like this is possible as they strive towards obtaining nuclear weapons.

That's a far more dangerous delusion than the ones commonly expressed by Rahimi and his friends in Iran...and it had better end quickly. Because the Ayatollahs aren't going to stop with the Jews.

Needless to say, the corruption accusations are an ideal way of appealing tothe Muslim Brotherhood's supporters while ensuring that 'undesireables' don't attempt to return and cause dissension. The Iranians used the exact same strategy when Khomeni took over in 1979. And in fact, Shafik appears ot have turned over some assets to the Brotherhood as the price for his freedom. No doubt others will do the same.

The Brotherhood also has seen to it that the martial law proclaimed by the military was rescinded.

Their biggest project, of course remains Islamizing Egypt and laying the ground for the new Caliphate, to be ruled by sharia.

While the plan is to be applied gradually, it calls for the strict implementation of sharia law, the abandonment of western based film and "artistic heritage," and memorization of the Qu'ran a condition for advancement in school.

The plan also calls for replacing the current national anthem with something called the anthem of the Islamic Caliphate,and the abolishment of Egypt's Ministry of Information and it's replacement by "an Islamic media organization".

How quickly this plan is implemented depends a great deal on the Egyptian military and how much and how quickly they can be subordinated to the regime's agenda. Tayyipp Erdogan and the AKP took almost a decade to do it in Turkey,but the Turkish military had a constitutional mandate to keep Turkey secular that went back to the days of Ataturk, and they were also fairly popular with the Turkish people.

In Iran, on the other hand,the transition happened fairly quickly because the military had no such legal role and because they had been identified with the deposed Shah,especially the higher ranking officers,most of whom either agreed to support Khomeni's regime, fled or were executed.

Egypt's military likewise has no legal role and the Brotherhood has been quite successful in identifying the military, especially the SCAF with Mubarak and with 'suppressing the Revolution'.

I'd put my money on a transition more on a timeline like Iran than Turkey.

We write to urge you to stand with us in the pursuit of justice for the Attorney General of the United States of America, Eric H. Holder. In its history, the United States House of Representatives has never held a United States Attorney General, or any other Cabinet official, in contempt.

Instead of focusing on job creation and other critical issues before this Congress, we have been asked to engage in a political stunt on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. Our constituents elected us to do real work, not to engage in meaningless partisan activity.

Over the past 15 months, Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice have cooperated with the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's requests for information on "Fast and Furious", an unfortunate operation that began under the Bush Administration and, in fact, was terminated by Attorney General Holder. The Department has made extraordinary efforts to accommodate Congress by turning over almost 8,000 documents--including all the documents that relate to the tactics in this investigation and the other flawed investigations that occurred in Arizona during the Bush Administration. The Attorney General also participated in a bicameral meeting in a good faith effort to satisfy the Committee's information requests. While the Attorney General has advised House Republicans that he is willing to work with them in attempting to reach an agreement, the Republican Leadership is instead rushing recklessly to a contempt vote.

Contempt power should be used sparingly, carefully and only in the most egregious situations. The Republican Leadership has articulated no legislative purpose for pursuing this course of action. For these reasons we cannot and will not participate in a vote to hold the Attorney General in contempt. We adamantly oppose this partisan attack and refuse to participate in any vote that would tarnish the image of Congress or of an Attorney General who has done nothing but work tirelessly to protect the rights of the American people. We must reflect upon why we are elected to this body and choose now to stand up for justice.

We call upon all members of Congress to stand with us during a press conference on the Capitol Building steps during this appalling series of votes to discuss our nation's most significant priority--creating jobs. At this critically important time in our nation, we must work as colleagues rather than political enemies.

Translation? 'It's ra-aa-aacism!'

Among the other fairy tales in this letter, I absolutely must correct one charming bit of disinformation.

Fast and Furious did not originate with the Bush Administration.That program was called Wide Receiver and it differed from Fast and Furious in some important ways;it involved only a small number of weapons, the weapons were equipped with tracking devices, no one was killed, the sales were closely monitored and done under surveillance and most importantly, Wide Receiver was done with the knowledge and cooperation of the Mexican government and was curtailed by the Bush Administration when it's deficiencies became evident. Fast and Furious was entirely an Obama Administration product and involved a large number of untracked weapons, over 400 people were murdered including a U.S. border patrol agent, and the Mexican government was not informed about what was going on until the whole operation became embarrassingly public and corpses stated piling up.

Obviously, the Congressional Black Caucus can demonstrate racial solidarity über alles and walk out. As a matter of fact, given the attitudes and performance of many of its members, I rather hope they make it a regular habit at voting time.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle said Wednesday that there was nothing in federal voting laws that prevent the state from identifying non-U.S. citizens even if it comes less than 90 days before the Aug. 14 election.

Hinkle ruled that federal laws are designed to block states from removing eligible voters close to an election. He said they are not designed to stop states from blocking voters who should have never been allowed to cast ballots in the first place.

I should be more jaded by now, but I have to admit to being amused by the dinosaur media's coverage of the day before the big day, as the usual suspects try to read the tea leaves and spin this with abandon.

Isn't it amusing that no one in the dinosaur media described the law as 'polarizing' when it was literally shoved through Congress? And given the polls that show most Americans view ObamaCare about the same way they view black widow spiders or burst pipes, wouldn't it be more accurate to describe the law as 'unpopular'?

It's all the fault of our polarized politics. If only there were more 'moderate' Republicans who would reliably do whatever Democrats want!

And plenty more, ad absurdum.

I wouldn't presume to predict what the Supreme Court will actually do, although I will say that if they strike down the individual mandate,(InTrade has it as a 73% chance) I'd guess the rest of ObamaCare will likely go with it because (A) there's no mechanism to fund the monstrosity otherwise and (b) none of the justices really wanted to go through a 2700 page bill to determine what parts might be salvageable, especially with no funding mechanism attached.

However, I can accurately predict exactly what will happen after the decision.

If the Court only strikes down the individual mandate, expect the media to spin it as a victory for Obama because 'most of the law survived intact'. President Obama will campaign against 'those white guys and that Uncle Tom who are trying to move America backwards and take away your healthcare' and tell his fans that he needs a second term to fix healthcare and give it back to them.

If the Court strikes down the entire bill, look for an angst ridden meltdown and an outcry of mind bending rage from the dinosaur media and their Leftist pundits. The usual tropes of class warfare, evil Republicans and calls to reform the Supreme Court to kick justices off the bench after a set term as opposed to life time appointments will be heard. The press will spin it as a victory for Obama because the ruling has 'energized Democrats' and 'given President Obama his groove back' with a brand new campaign issue to run on...whether that's actually true or not.If the Court upholds ObamaCare, look for the kind of chest pounding triumphalism and mockery normally emanating from ten-year-olds, coming from the usual suspects. The Supreme Court will be lionized in the dinosaur media as 'guardians of the people's rights' and an institution that shouldn't be tampered with in any way. Any justices that voted to strike down ObamaCare, no matter how reasoned their demeanor and arguments will be described as 'angry', 'out of touch', 'rigid', and 'ultraconservative'.

The press will spin it as a victory for Obama, who has 'now seen his signature achievement validated' and now has 'gotten his groove back' in his re-election campaign because of this 'historic win.'

Republicans will be described as 'dispirited', 'angry' and 'frustrated'. In reality,after a day or so of reflection, the Court upholding ObamaCare would almost certainly galvanize the American people,particularly the Tea Party, to organize and work to take back Congress and the White House as ObamaCare's repeal becomes an even bigger issue than it was before.

Unlike a lot of what you're reading or hearing, you can definitely count on my predictions coming true.

Oh, yes..for those of you whom want to read a decent, balanced analysis of how the whole thing might play out, I recommend Sean Trende's piece here.

Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won't be published)anywhere in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then simply return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

Could it be any easier?

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Barack Obama suggested that any decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn his landmark healthcare law would send the country “backwards” and that Americans did not want to “re-fight” the battle over healthcare.

It was the first sign that beyond the White House’s staunch defence of the Affordable Care Act Mr Obama is prepared to use the law as a rallying cry on the campaign trail. It is a risky strategy: about half the country remains opposed to the legislation, although most voters like the consumer protections that are guaranteed under the law.

...

In his comments, Mr Obama did not make any explicit references to the court, although he has said in the past that it would be “unprecedented” for the ACA to be overturned.

“The American people fight for what’s right. And the American people understand that we’re not going to make progress by going backwards. We need to go forward,” he said.

Now, the actual decision was made probably a month ago, so the president is not warning and threatening the Court as he did before. No, he's opening up a new campaign theme.

Which may mean that he's already been tipped off on how the Court is going to rule.

There's a new angle in the Trayvon Martin case. Apparently George Zimmerman passed a police administered lie detector test right after the incident - and passed.

According to a “confidential report” prepared by the Sanford Police Department, Zimmerman, 28, willingly submitted to a computer voice stress analyzer (CVSA) “truth verification” on February 27. Investigators concluded that he “has told substantially the complete truth in regards to this examination.”

Along with questions about whether his first name was George and if it was Monday, Zimmerman was asked, “Did you confront the guy you shot?’ He answered, “No.” He was also asked, “Were you in fear for your life, when you shot the guy.” Zimmerman replied, “Yes.”

Before the CVSA test, Zimmerman--who was apparently not accompanied by legal counsel--signed a Sanford Police Department release stating that he was undergoing the examination “voluntarily, without duress, coercion, threat or promise.”

Now, these tests are not infallible, but you have to be pretty damned good at deception, almost to the point of being a psychopathic liar who actually believes his own lies are the truth.

I doubt George Zimmerman is that good...although of course, if he is, the White is missing out by not immediately pardoning him and putting him to work on the Obama campaign, or sticking him in Jay Carney's slot as White House press secretary. Carney seems to be showing the strain lately, and is even suffering the fate of being mocked as he attempts to tell the usual fairy tales.:

I doubt he could pass a similar test on what he's putting out there and come up with the same results Zimmerman did.

Rep. Darrel Issa, the chairman of the House oversight committee investigating White House involvement in 'Fast And Furious' wrote a 7 page letter to President Obama today, accusing the White House of either misleading Congress about his involvement in the scandal or intentionally obstructing Congress' inquiry.

The letter came in response to the president's decision to assert executive privilege over documents subpoenaed by the committee that Attorney General Eric Holder refused to release. The House is expected to vote on holding the attorney general in contempt of Congress in two days time.

"Either you or your most senior advisers were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it...or, you are asserting a Presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation," Issa wrote. "To date, the White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the Department with respect to the congressional investigation. The surprising assertion of executive privilege raised the question of whether that is still the case."

Issa asked Obama to "define the universe of documents over which you asserted executive privilege and provide the committee with the legal justification from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)."

This is called cataloging, something that has been used in virtually every claim of executive privilege previously asserted. It amounts to listing the documents denied and providing a rationale under which they are covered by executive privilege. In contrast, this president has merely issued a blanket claim.

"These key documents would help the committee understand how and why the Justice Department moved from denying whistle blower allegations to understanding they were true; the identities of officials who attempted to retaliate against whistle blowers," Issa wrote, also stating that the committee wants to learn "whether senior (Justice) Department officials are being held to the same standard as lower-level employees who have been blamed for Fast and Furious by their politically-appointed bosses in Washington."

And of course, here's the kicker - Issa wants President Obama to explain "what extent were you or your most senior advisers involved in Operation Fast and Furious and the fallout from it," and asked the president to provide documents related to "any communications, meetings, and teleconferences between the White House and the Justice Department between February 4, 2011, and June 18, 2012, the day before the attorney general requested that you assert executive privilege."

Fast and Furious was a Department of Justice program that allowed huge
quantities of AK-47s and other firearms to be purchased by straw buyers
and "walk" into Mexico to be illegally sold to Mexican drug cartels.
The weapons were not electronically tracked, most have never been
recovered and over 300 murders have been linked to them, including that
of border patrol agent Brian Terry.

The subpoenaed documents concern Department of Justice and White House deliberations that likely led to a Justice Department letter, signed by Holder back in February 2011, that claimed he and the upper echelons of the Department of Justice had no prior knowledge of Fast and Furious. The letter was revealed as patently untrue nine months after AG Holder submitted it to the committee.

Issa and his co-chair, Senator Chuck Grassley have their hands on a copy of an internal Justice Department memo provided by a whistle blower that involved wiretap applications and reportedly shows that senior DOJ officials including AG Holder knew back in March 2011 that the February 4, 2011 letter from the DOJ to Senator Chuck Grassley denying guns were permitted to “walk” into Mexico was bogus. That letter, signed by Attorney General Holder was allowed to .stand for nine more months, and was only withdrawn when a series of e-mails subpoenaed by the committee proved that Holder was briefed far earlier on the program than he claimed to have been.

“The ATF director, Kenneth Melson, sent an e-mail. And he had said to us in sworn testimony that, in fact, he had concerns,” Issa said. “And we want to see that e-mail because that’s an example where he was saying, if we believe his sworn testimony, that guns walked. And he said it shortly after February 4, and [on] July 4. When he told us that, we began asking for that document.”

What this shows, of course, is that even though Holder and senior DOJ official knew in March 2011 that the information provided in the February letter was false, they continued to mislead Congress for another 8 months and only dropped the pose after subsequent e-mails showed the information contained February letter was completely untrue.

That's called obstruction of justice and perjury.

Even more interesting is that the wiretap applications may not be able to be shielded by the president under executive privilege because these particular documents are already under federal court seal. Issa has said a whistleblower provided copies to his committee.

Issa and Grassley aren't stupid, and they appear to be following an old lawyer's dictum not to ask any questions you don't already know the answer to.

And there is definitely another trail that leads back directly to the White House.

As you'll recall, Obama's 2009 stimulus bill was thrashed out entirely by Democrats with Republicans literally locked out of the room.

Monday, June 25, 2012

In what can only be described as full tantrum mode, the Department of Homeland Security has unilaterally announced that it will no longer cooperate with the Arizona law enforcement in checks on immigration status:

The Obama administration said Monday it is suspending existing agreements with Arizona police over enforcement of federal immigration laws, and said it has issued a directive telling federal authorities to decline many of the calls reporting illegal immigrants that the Homeland Security Department may get from Arizona police.

In other words, when Arizona law enforcement officials attempt to enforce the part of the law that coincides U.S immigration law that the Supreme Court upheld today, the agents at ICE will either refuse to answer the calls or tell the Arixzona authorities to release them..regardless of whether they're illegal aliens or not:

On Monday the administration officials said they had concluded the seven agreements they had signed with various departments in Arizona weren’t working and took the Supreme Court’s ruling as a chance to scrap them.

I have a feeling this is grounds for a counter suit. If anything else, it proves, unfortunately that Scalia may have been right in his dissent today.

The 10th Amendment says explicitly that all powers not reserved by the Federal Government belong to the individual states. If the Federal government deliberately refuses to exercise powers it supposedly reserved and ignores federal law to boot, sovereign states ought to have these rights restored to them.

Mrs. Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff and her closest adviser is Huma Abedin, recently in the news as the unfortunate wife of disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner.The relationship between the two women is extraordinarily close, and it is an open joke in Washington to refer to Ms. Abedin as 'Hillary's shadow'.

As I revealed previously, Huma Abedin also has very close family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.Her entire immediate family are well known in hard line Islamist circles.

For instance, her mother, Saleha Abedin is listed as a leader of the female division of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ikhwan, also known as the International Women's Organization (IWO) both by al Jazeera and by Al-Liwa Al-Arabi(translated here).

Also part of this group? None other than Najla Ali Mahmoud, the wife of new Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi. Both are members of the Guidance Bureau, meaning they were part of the top leadership, rather than mere timeservers or followers.

It's no stretch at all for me to see Huma Abedin working over time to influence Secretary Clinton as to the beneficence of the Brotherhood and or to ask her to use her influence as part of the Obama Administration on behalf of the husband of her mother's old comrade-in-arms.

Another aspect of this I mentioned before has to do with Huma's marriage to then-Congressman Anthony Weiner, who is Jewish. Ms. Abedin is described frequently as a 'pious Muslim.'

Such a marriage is entirely haram ( forbidden) in Islam by all four major fiqhs, schools of Islamic thought and jurisprudence. A Muslim man is permitted to marry a Christian or a Jewish woman since the children are mandated to belong to the husband and raised as Muslims, but a Muslim woman may only marry a non-Muslim man if he recites the shehadah and accepts Islam.

Weiner apparently did not convert, and in any event Huma Abedin's Islamist family would have denounced her for marrying a Jew. Yet, they did not. Which leads me to believe there is some higher goal here.

As Secretary Clinton's close adviser, she already has access to quite a bit of classified information, as well as having the sympathetic ear of the U.S. Secretary of State and the ability to influence policy on a very personal level.

Also, as a Muslima, she has the religious flexibility to practice takiyah, or Muruna as it is more commonly known among Sunnis, deception to advance Islam.

This is speculation, but for the Muslim Brotherhood leadership, can you imagine a better placed mole than Huma Abedin?

You might recall the story of a North Carolina teacher, one Tanya Dixon-Neely throwing a fit and screaming at her class while telling them it was criminal to criticize President Obama, along with a lot of other gems, including a threat of physical violence towards a student ("Do I need to get out my cane?").The entire episode was caught on the above video.

Needless to say, in spite of this teacher showing off her excellent classroom management skills by getting hysterical in front of her students and actually threatening one of them physically was outweighed by her union protection and racial background.

She received a slap on the wrist and a ten day suspension, and will of course keep her job.

The student who challenged her, videotaped her rant in class and lifted up the rock didn't fare quite so well.

As Breitbart reveals, Hunter Rogers, the high school junior in question was subjected to harassment and retaliation by the school's administration and relatives of of Ms. Dixon-Neely who attend the school:

The young man who did the videotaping had a hellish time finishing the school year. In an interview with Breitbart News, the young man’s sister described the ensuing weeks after the videotape. She said that some of the other students have said they are out to get the young man; the teacher, Tanya Dixon-Neely, has relatives who are students in the school. The young man’s family, fearing for his safety, requested for the young man to finish the last three weeks of school at home, but the school refused. Instead, the school offered for the young man to come to school after the other students were already in class, be secluded from other students during the school day and leave before school ended.

According to the videotaper’s sister, not only did the school authorities reject the appeal for home-schooling, they gave him a suspension on his school record for videotaping in the classroom -- the first suspension ever issued for such an action, despite the fact that other students have also videotaped on school grounds.

The young man’s sister stated that assistant principal Antoine Brisbon said to her brother, “That was a very stupid thing you did. You have damaged the school. Our staff is taking a beating because our phones are nonstop. This is all over the country.” She also said that after the video was released, Tanya Dixon-Neely started making indirect remarks at the young man accusing him of stabbing her in the back. The family tried to find another school for the young man, but the sister said the schools that are close enough are worse.

Meanwhile, Dixon-Neely received a ten-day suspension, but she will be back in the fall. Since the young man will be returning as a senior, he may have her as a teacher. Even if he does not, he will be reentering a poisonous atmosphere without support from the school.

And to add insult to injury, the Rogers family will continue to foot the bill for the school, and for the inflated salary and benefits of Ms. Dixon-Neely and assistant principal Brisbon, shown below..

For those of you who think I'm overestimating the racial component of this story, reverse the story and ask yourself...if this was a black student abused and treated in this manner by a white principal and a white teacher, would it or would it not be headlines nationwide and is there any question the Obama Justice Department wouldn't be fully be involved?

The back story on this is absolutely incredible. So is the Obama Administration's direct involvement.

As you know President Obama has long been sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. There are several influential people in his administration with Muslim Brotherhood ties like senior White House adviser Dalia Mogahed, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's close personal aide and adviser Huma Abedin and U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) Rashad Hussain, among others.

The Muslim Brotherhood has a friendly ear in the White House. Here's how they used it.

You may remember a story that briefly surfaced last week about an Egyptian Islamist who was invited to the White House named Hani Nour Eldin. Eldin is an Islamist member of the Egyptian Parliament who belongs to an officially designated terrorist group, Gamaa Islamiya. Those in the media who bothered to cover this were wondering why someone like this not only got a visa in defiance of U.S. law, but a White House invite to a sit down with what were described as 'high-level advisers'.

The answer is simple. Eldin's trip, authorized by the White House, was made after the SCAF dissolved the newly elected Egyptian parliament, after the assumption by the junta of legislative authority and after the announced delay in declaring the winner of the Egyptian presidential run off between the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi and the army's candidate, Ahmed Shafik.

According to my sources, Hani Nour Eldin was the chosen ambassador of the Egyptian Islamists to the White House sent to ask for their assistance in getting the junta to turn over power to them, and the story that he came here to ask for clemency for Omar Abdel Rahman, the Egyptian cleric convicted of involvement in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1992 is simply misleading nonsense.

The Army was already well aware that Shafik had lost handily to the Islamists, and the steps they had taken, which included declaring martial law, were designed to hang on to power and their prerogatives.

What happened next was an elaborate three way dance between the Egyptian military junta, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Obama Administration.

Egypt is heavily dependent on U.S. aid and is in the process of negotiating a desperately needed loan from the IMF. In fact, one of the reasons for the trumped up dissolution of parliament was a disagreement between the junta and the Islamist over whom was going to control the funds from the IMF loan once it went through.

The Obama Administration apparently acted as the muscle for the Brotherhood, threatening the junta with the possible loss of all U.S. aid and the torpedoing of the IMF loan unless they relinquished power to the Brotherhood and worked out something acceptable. At that point, the junta and the Brotherhood began serious negotiations.

What apparently has resulted is that Morsi and the Brotherhood will take over as civilian leaders, but without a parliament and with limited powers. In exchange, the Brotherhood has apparently decided to allow the military to hang on to some of its power and prerogatives and pledged to avoid an open confrontation in the streets - for now.

Morsi made perfunctory mentions of being the President of 'all Egypt' which some people have taken to mean that Egypt's Christian Copts and Egypt's women are going to have democratic rights. Watch and see how many Copts end up fleeing Egypt within a year's time.Egypt, as I predicted when the rebellion first started will end up becoming the Sunni equivalent of Iran.U.S. President Barack Obama called Morsi to congratulate him and pledge to "support Egypt's transition to democracy and stand by the Egyptian people as they fulfill the promise of the revolution." Translation.. the aid check's on the way. Not only are we now funding Hamas, but we'll be funding their parent organization in Egypt.

President Obama's strategy - if it can be called that - is to appease and assist the Muslim Brotherhood at every turn because he imagines that these Islamists can be 'worked with'. He couldn't be more wrong, and subsequent events are going to bear that out.

This is a much bigger event than people in the West realize.

UPDATE: Shafik, the losing candiate has fled the country with his family. More details here on the deal between the Brotherhood and the junta, and on the Brotherhood's formal plan to Islamize Egypt and establish the base for the Caliphate. It really looks like Egypt is headed towards becoming a Sunni version of Iran.

In American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock, the Montana State Supreme Court had ruled that corporations were prohibited from contributing to political campaigns, a direct challenge to the Citizen's United ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court quite properly overturned the Montana Court's decision, ruling that Citizen's United applies to the individual states as well as the nation.

It's interesting to see the left moan about this.

Earlier, I wrote about the partial overturning of SB 1070, the Arizona immigration law on the grounds that parts of it ursurped federal powers. Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Ginsberg were happy to jump on that particular trolley and join the majority.

Here, we have a similar case of of a state attempting to flout U.S. law and ursurp federal jurisdiction and wouldn't you know it, they all vote to allow it!

Fortunately, they were overruled by the majority.

Aside from the Citizen's United decision being a clear stand for First Amendment Rights, striking it down would also violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Labor unions and advocacy groups like NARAL,Planned Parenthood and Code Pink are allowed to make campaign contributions based on freedom of speech. So should corporations.

Citizen's United essentially levels the playing field, which is exactly why the left hates it so much.

The part of the law requiring suspected illegal aliens to provide law officers with proof of status - the so-called 'show me your papers' clause - was upheld by the Court as constitutional and a legitimate exercise of a state's powers to enforce the law.

The Court struck down the provisions making it a crime for illegal aliens without work permits to seek employment, to fail to carry registration documents, and to allow the arrest of anyone believed to be an illegal alien and subject to deportation.

The decision was something of a mixed bag. Five justices - Justice Anthony Kennedy, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor - voted to strike down three provisions. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas wanted to allow the entire law to stand while Justice Samuel Alito would have struck down one unnamed provision and kept the rest of the law intact. Justice Kagan was forced to recuse herself.

Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion:

"Arizona may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration while that process continues, but the state may not pursue policies that undermine federal law."

That's really the crux of it. Asking someone to show papers or ID is an exercise in law enforcement that's in sync with federal law. The three provisions the Court struck down are expansions of it.

Justice Scalia, with his characteristic wit made the case in his dissent for Arizona's law on the basis of state sovereignty, writing, "If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign state."

So in the end, the ruling on SB1070 merely kicks the can down the road.

The real problem is that for political reasons the United States has been failing to enforce it's immigration laws for some time on a selective basis when it comes to primarily Latino aliens coming through our southern border. It is a federal problem that will take federal legislation to solve. Even if illegal alien migration wasn't a key part of wrecking the budget of several U.S. States, it simply isn't viable from a security standpoint in a post 9/11 world.

Or to take Justice Scalia's point to it's logical conclusion, if the United States can't secure it's territory, there's no reason to refer to it as a sovereign state.